Making Fun Of ISAT Test Increases
Those mean folks at the Fordham Foundation are making fun of our test score increases (The Education Gadfly):
"State education officials in the Land of Lincoln are jumping for joy--student performance on the state's ISAT exam is up from 2005. Way, way up...What [Becky McCabe] didn't say is that the passing bar on the 8th grade math test was lowered dramatically. Or that students had longer to write (45 minutes more on the reading section). Or that there were fewer questions. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that something doesn't compute here," said a University of Arizona professor. "All of the changes they made to the test will certainly inflate the scores." The head of the state's Business Roundtable was more blunt: "It's an anomaly that blows the credibility of this test." Puff!"
And that credibility is blown without even releasing the "test items" so that the public can see whether the tests were also made easier, and not just the times and the scoring standards.
It's scary when I find myself agreeing with Checker Finn and the Paul Vallas Fan Club (the Business Roundtable guys). I'm going to write them about supporting an Illinois Truth in Testing law.
Posted by: George Schmidt | March 12, 2007 at 08:08 AM